Also a Poet

Dear Blogger friends,

Thank you so much for your expressions of sympathy. They mean lot to me.

Otto and I have always participated in many of each other's activities. I have gone to technical conferences with Otto, once or twice chaired sessions where my knowledge was up to the challenge, drawn circuit diagrams, even shared a patent. Otto and I went to writer's groups together because he wanted to go with me and share my interests. For a poetry workshop, Otto wrote the following:

Stonehenge

The sun orb at its noon zenith
approaching midsummer
casts my shrunken shadow around my feet.
It stretches out like a snake emerging
from his hole
then races east and south
as the sun swings low and north
until at sunset my shadow is infinitely long.

It sleeps fitfully
then jumps to life in the early midsummer morn.
Stonehenge points to the sun's
most northern emergence.

We mark each high point with such monuments:
greatest weight lifted
farthest discus thrown
largest pumpkin grown
valedictorian
highest flood
largest tree.

We mark the onset of anxiety
that the sun will desert us quickly -
shorter days, longer noon shadows,
cooler nights, threat of winter.

We are anxious about the ebb,
the coming cold, slipping skills,
a loved one leaving.

What enchantment can keep this warmth with me?

April 2005, Otto J. M. Smith